It may well be of little surprise that British girls are now the fattest in Europe .


There will ALWAYS be those who wish freedom to eat what they wish - rather than living in a healthy way, but in their opinion unhappy, to old age ! It’s not easy to lose weight, and maintain that loss. How much MORE miserable for most of them – and their loved ones – to suffer the consequences of this epidemic of obesity !



Tackling obesity is not rocket science. It’s preventable. But nothing tried so far has worked – legislation; public education ; self-regulation by the food industry ; or individual attempts to diet by whatever means ( albeit successful for some ).


Overweight / obese girls and boys in the UK can’t , in my opinion, take all the blame. Especially at an early age, surely the parents bear responsibility – and their own offspring may blame them in future for letting them become obese.


The team who published in the Lancet today compared changing levels of overweight / obesity between regions and countries since 1980. NO country has had a significant decrease in obesity levels over this period .


• Worldwide, the proportion of adults with body mass index / BMI over 25 has increased from 29% to 37% in men ; 30% to 38% in women. Now around a quarter of boys and girls are overweight / obese in developed countries; just over an eighth in developing countries. There are over 2 billion overweight / obese individuals in the world today .



• Over half of the world’s obese individuals live in 10 countries ( USA, China, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Germany, Pakistan and Indonesia ).



• For the PHILIPPINES :- in 2013, 5.5% boys ( 20 years or less ) are overweight and obese ( 2.6% obese ) ; 23% ( 4% obese ) men ; 5.4% girls ( 2.1% obese ) ; 25.9% ( 6.2% obese ) women.


• For the UK :- 26.1% ( 7.4% obese ) boys ; 66.6% ( 24.5% obese ) men ; 29.2% ( 8.1% obese ) girls ; 57.2% ( 25.4% obese ) women.



The authors do list limitations to their work :-

• included surveys of self-reported weights and heights
• excluded some studies if only from one city
• data sparse in the early years ( 1980’s )
• might have underestimated uncertainty ranges
• definitions of childhood obesity vary
• BMI is a convenient measure but is flawed on its own


Good luck to EVERYONE who is trying to do something about their personal level of fitness and weight issues . If you’re in the minority with a healthy BMI and lifestyle, then please don’t judge ; try to help others .

MOST would be happy to achieve a healthy weight - knowing they look better, feel better, and are likely to live longer by lowering the risks of being overweight !



http://www.thelancet.com/journals/la...460-8/fulltext